The Bripa Project

Aaaaaannnd last but not least, the plans for the basement:

The floorpan of the ‘before’ basement is misleading in that it seems wide open and inviting – when in fact there were no proper lights, the mechanical was taking up a huge swatch of the floor plan, and the columns had large footers you could trip over. The ceiling was mostly around 7 feet tall already, which we’ll expand a bit so we have code-appropriate ceiling heights (we have to dig out the floor anyway to put in a totally new water service).

[Kripa: It’s current state has a real “I’m going to steal your organs” vibe. We’re hoping to move it into a less murder-y direction.]

In the new floorpan, we’ve defined the space a few ways:

Rec Room. When you come down the stairs, there will be basically an extra living room. Maybe we use it for a TV/projector room, maybe it’s where our kid plays as he gets older. There’s going to be a column in it, which is something we’ll have to figure out design-wise.

Mechanical. Nothing too exciting here, basically a room for the HVAC.

[Kripa: That’s a laugh. Brian needs central air like he needs actual air. I like how he’s all, “HVAC, NBD,” when in reality if we’re in a humid place and there is no A/C he has a toddler level meltdown.]

Bedroom. We’re adding a bedroom in the basement bump-out which will be across from a bathroom. Good for guests, might also be good for Airbnb?

[Kripa: We have definitely not talked about this yet. Glad to have heard about it through the blog.  #rollingeyesemoji]

Bathroom. A basic bathroom where we might have a little more fun design-wise.

Mudroom. We’re imagining that during the rainy and snowy time in Chicago (e.g. November-April), we’ll want a space to track muddy shoes in when you’re coming from the detached garage through the back yard. This is a large mudroom, where we’ll add coat storage and benches. We’re also adding a laundry hookup so, if/when we sell the house, there’s an option for basement laundry (which some people prefer).

[Kripa: This is so strange to me but apparently laundry hookups in the basement and second floor is good for resale. Who are all these laundry-loving house buyers?]

Bedroom / Woodshop. This is the 2nd bedroom in the basement, but we’re going to use it as a WOODSHOP!! I enjoy doing house projects and woodworking, but haven’t ever had a dedicated space (though I was able to build a few pieces at the Chicago Industrial Arts & Design Center). When we lived in Arizona we did some house projects, which involved parking the car outside the garage until the project ended. My plan is to add a hearty dust collection system and operate a small indoor woodshop.

What’s next? Well, we have plans, we have permits – now it’s time for demolition!

Time to talk about the second floor! Unsurprisingly, this is where a majority of the bedrooms will be.

Washer/Dryer Closet – Not the most exciting start, but once you come up the stairs, you will see doors to our enclosed washer/dryer as well as to the mechanical closet.

Master bedroom – The former living room and sitting room and bonus room will become the new master bedroom. We had a lot of debate about where to put the master. Most homes put the master in the back of the house for privacy, but with the train and the existing balcony/front porch, we could have gone either direction. Ultimately, I opted to be selfish and keep the bonus room/porch for ourselves. The key for me was trying to figure out how to make the most of a long, rectangular room. I can’t remember how exactly it happened, so let’s just say I woke up with a start one night with a brain wave. We could put a double-sided fireplace in the middle of the room, with openings/clearance on either side to split the “bedroom” area from the “sitting room” area. Luxurious and probably unnecessary but I could see it being a very special “moment” in the house. I got excited about it and there was no going back. There’s a part 2 about this fireplace, that I’ll let Brian talk about at another time.

[Brian: I’m excited that Kripa’s had this idea about the two-side fireplace, and I’m glad that we’re sticking with it even as we’ve questioned it over and over. For context: we’ve been trying to balance design decisions between 1. our own preferences, 2. trying out our home design muscles, and 3. thinking about resale. Based on our personalities, I fear that we’ll lean in the direction of prioritizing resale too frequently, and I like that the two-sided fireplace 1 and 2 more than resale.]

Sitting room – As mentioned, the sitting room will be on the other side of the fireplace. Depending on how big it will actually end up being, I can image two chairs and an ottoman for reading by the fire, and maybe a little writing desk for when I write the next great American novel. What? It could happen. You don’t know me.

Closet – This is an enormous closet, but one side is more enormous than the other. It’s a shame we so align with stereotypical gender norms, but my closet needs outweigh Brian’s, hence the “hers” and “his” sides. Ideally we trick this out so it’s like a little jewel box of a closet – think built-in drawers and wallpapered closet backs. (Is “closet backs” a thing? You know what I mean, right?) That may take some time but I can imagine it being really fun. Incidentally, in our last house we gutted and rebuilt our master closet ourselves so I feel like I have a decent idea of what I want and need. I’m ok with this not being “finished” right away but coming together over time.

[Brian: Wait, I thought the closet was going to be split lengthwise so we’d each have one side of equal size… (jk)]

Master bath – This is the point where you realize the master suite is taking up about half of this entire floor. Every time I realize this I look up inspirational quotes like, “I’M WORTH IT” and “I DESERVE THE BEST” and then I feel ok again. Anyway, there’s some standard master bath stuff here, like a double vanity and large walk-in shower. We plan to re-use the clawfoot tub in here *fingers crossed*. Key to this design is the designated toilet room which incidentally is also the key to a successful marriage. True story, every place we’ve lived that has more than one bathroom, Brian and I have used separate bathrooms. In case you didn’t know, boys are GROSS and every bathroom they use belongs in a dirty frat house. I’ve been on the struggle bus a bit on the design here, but I found a tile that I LOVE and it’s all coming together again, I think/hope.

[Brian: … … … … yeah, ok, fair point.]

Overlook – FRIENDS. We have not yet spoken about the skylights. We are excited about this, and all credit goes to our architect David who pushed us to incorporate this into the design. We both love natural light, but Brian needs it like a, I don’t know, reverse vampire? Anyway, We’re going to have skylights in the roof, which will shine light down this open area on the second floor down into the first floor in the dining room area. I’m sure Brian will want to talk about the skylights in another post, for which we will all await with breath that is bated.

[Brian: We also haven’t discussed how we’re going to have an opening from the second floor down to the first floor, which will be perfect for throwing things and various pranks.]

Hall bathroom – This bathroom will serve the other bedrooms on this floor. Standard fare – double sink, tub/shower combo, etc. Hoping to do something fun here with the tile/paint choices, but we’ll see.

Bedrooms – We’ll have two bedrooms on this floor, again, pretty standard here. The bedroom on the north side (left in the floor plan) will have some big windows because this will be where the addition was. The other bedroom makes up the last part of the floor. We ended up having to cut into the window here to make the floor plan work, so it’s going to be tall and skinny. I’m a little worried it will be a bit small and dark in there even though it will have another window. Maybe this can be the napping room? Why do I need a napping room you ask? Because I’M WORTH IT and DESERVE THE BEST. (Or so I’m told).

[Brian: +1 to napping room.]

Next, down to the basement!

Welcome to the new layout! Let’s take a virtual walk-through:

Front porch – This stays the same. (Ok, not the most exciting start). BUT, I’m excited to add some kind of outdoor furniture (or swing?) here to sip tea and yell at the neighborhood kids to get off our teeny, tiny lawn. J/K, there’s a fence, no one is getting in.

[Brian: We are fixing the cracked cement and putting a new roof to the front porch, so it should look much nicer than in the before photos.]

Entry – The little vestibule before becomes our new entryway. We’re adding a coat closet here because #chicagoweather. We’re excited for the original tile to be the star of the show, and maybe a fun entryway light. The original doors have taken a bit of a beating, so we’ll likely replace some of it, likely a door that’s not mostly glass for privacy reasons. Speaking of which, this area just barely passes the “underwear test.” I suppose there are a lot of potential meanings to that, but in this case it relates to how far away the bottom of the staircase ends to where your front door begins – it should be a good enough distance that people from the street can’t see you in your underwear coming down the stairs. Brian was less worried about this – in his words, “You’re welcome, neighborhood.”

[Brian: You’re welcome, neighborhood.]

Living room – this also stays pretty much the same, although we’re widening the cased opening and pushing the far wall back a bit. In my mind this could be a really cool room eventually, including a window seat that spans along the window wall and built-in bookshelves along the long continuous wall. And probably moulding. Lots of moulding. I’m mad for moulding! We’d like for this to be a non TV-centric room for hanging out and family time. That little nook is where we may sneak the original built-ins back in.

[Brian: Kripa’s Canadian origins are coming out here – she obviously means “molding” without the Crown adding an unnecessary “u”.]

Dining area – OK, here’s where things really start to take a hard left from the original floor plan. We like things generally open so this seemed like a good place to keep things more open (note to self: look up synonyms for “open” and “open concept”). A lot of single family homes here have a formal dining room/area and an eat-in kitchen or additional eat-in nook. There was really no need for us to have two separate areas so having one designated “eating spot” that was central to the house seemed to be the right fit. We call this area the “bump out” on all the floors (because the wall comes out a bit with two angled windows).

Bathroom – A plus about needing to replace all the plumbing anyway meant we could put the bathrooms anywhere. Most homes have only a powder bath on the first floor, but we opted to add a shower to make it more accessible. I have some fun ideas for the design in here – feels like a good place to be a little creative!

[Brian: we have family members that don’t jive well with lots of stairs, so having a full bath on the first floor makes it easier for them to come and stay with us.]

Family room – This little corner becomes the new family room or informal living room. We thought this might be a good place for a TV. I’m a little worried with the couch placement it will end up being too close to the TV. This ends up being an argument with Brian who basically feels like you should be close enough to touch the screen. True story, he started inching up our couch closer to the TV to make his point after we had this argument discussion, as if I wouldn’t notice.

[Brian: she didn’t notice until I pointed it out. — That said, I do share Kripa’s concern about the couch placement – I want to keep a sense of openness, and I’m worried the TV couch make some areas feel cramped. I’m still open on which room the TV goes in – maybe we revisit it being in the front formal living room?]

Rear terrace/porch – This is another big change. The addition (breakfast nook) in the original structure had to be either removed or re-built due to code. Our architect made a good point: imagine once that was the addition was taken out, you essentially you have a big hole to work with – specifically, to work in a lot of windows. And windows are our love language. We’ll put in french doors to the outside and a transom window above. I don’t think we’ll miss the square footage (I mean, this house will be way bigger than anything we’ve lived in anyway). Instead we’ll have an outdoor porch where we can sit around and watch the train go by. Silently, because you can’t talk over the train noise.

Kitchen – The kitchen will be open to the rest of the space, with cabinets and a range along the back wall and a large island. A lot of people put a mudroom of some kind at the back of the houses here because the garages here are detached so most of the time people come in from the back door as opposed to the front. I think this might have been a missed opportunity, but we’ll see. Instead we’re doing a big cabinet right next to the french doors that will be like a mudroom closet. I’ve been thinking a lot about the kitchen design and finishes, perhaps too much time? The range and hood will be the star of the show and I’m going to have a POT FILLER because they are FANCY and I’m a FANCY LADY.

[Brian: spoiler: we’ll have a proper mudroom you can enter from the back yard in the basement, so I think we’ll be fine. And I think I’m OK taking lead carrying groceries from the basement mudroom up to the kitchen when it’s snowy/rainy, even though that will mean traversing the house length twice – but if any more experienced folks have insight about how that plays out in reality, I’d love to hear more in the comments section.]

Pantry – This is one of those things I never thought I would love as much as I do, but #adulting. This pantry is going to be massive – sort of unintentionally so, but I am here for it! We’ll have some room along the wall to put some base cabinets and shelving for all our small appliances that I am also weirdly very excited about. I’d like to put a beverage fridge in here so the fridge doesn’t get clogged up with all of Brian’s beer. We’ll see; built-in beverage fridges can be more expensive than actual fridges. We should talk about appliances at some point, because everything beautiful costs $1,203,227,432,874 (estimate).

[Brian: I want to take umbrage with the implication that I drink so much beer that we don’t have room for other food in our fridge, but sounds like I’m getting a beer fridge in the pantry, so I’m good.]

Ok, ok, ok. Are you excited? I’m excited. Let’s talk about the 2nd floor in the next post!

What we originally thought…

We initially wanted to do a fixer upper that we lived in while doing a mix of DIY projects and larger renovations via a contractor. When we decided to work on this project, we realized that the scale was WAY beyond our abilities to do ourselves: not only did we want to change the layout (which makes sense given the conversion from two apartments to a single family home), but the plumbing and electrical needed to be updated which would involve replacing all the existing plaster walls. In other words, for sanity safety and convenience we wouldn’t be able to live there while the work went on.

[Kripa: To be clear, Brian at one point said to me “we could live here while we do the work” LIKE A CRAZY PERSON. ]

For a project that was turning into a major renovation, it was pretty necessary we to hire an architect to help nail down the floor plan and also handle getting all the permits (which is a big deal in Chicago).

[Kripa: By big deal, he means nightmare.]

Step 1: Program requirements

To kick off the layout brainstorming process, we drafted a document back in April on what we were thinking to share with the architect. We want to balance our own wants/needs with resale considerations. In other words, we needed to make sure we were positioning ourselves well for resale, and not dropping a bunch of money on a custom house that no one else would ever want to live in.

[Kripa: This was the argument I had to use to stop Brian for making every room a “hidden” room.]

Below is a mix of the core ‘program requirements’ (architect speak for ‘what you really need’) and some strong preferences:

• 4 bedroom minimum, 5 ideally
• 4 bath, 1 in the basement
• 1 bed/bath on first floor for family members who can’t accommodate stairs
• Master bedroom with master bath
• Hardwood floors
• Finished basement to code
• Kitchen has living space attached
• Large kitchen with lots of natural light
• Place to do woodworking in the basement
• Area near any entry to store shoes and jackets when coming inside, drop off kid stuff
• Mudroom/drop space in back (coming in from garage/backyard)
• Large master closet (ideally walk in)
• Decent pantry

Meeting with the architect

We met with our architect, David, to review the program requirements in mid-April, and started brainstorming floor plans in May. The goal was to get to “schematic design” (a rough floorpan), which becomes the basis for the detailed construction documents and permit documents. David showed up with some initial ideas, and plenty of tracing paper so we could riff on ideas as we went.

• 

• 

• 

• 

[Kripa: Not pictured: our baby trying to eat all the tracing paper.]

Step 2: Design development

About two weeks later, we got an initial layout from the architect (more on that in a future post). We had been meeting on the weekend, but to keep things moving we decided to meet on a few weeknights remotely via a Slack screen share. Slack has a drawing functionality so we could look at David’s screen and draw over it so we could all brainstorm but be working on the same file in his design software. We got into more details with elevations and some 3D renderings of key areas (like the kitchen!).

[Kripa: Not sponsored by Slack, even though it sounds like it is. Brian is just weirdly obsessed with Slack. I’m not even sure why this is relevant for this post? Note to self, draft all posts first myself.]

Step 3: Construction documents and permits

By June we had 50% construction documents (very detailed to my eye, but I think “50%” helped communicate that changes were still coming) so we could get realistic bids from general contractors. We wanted to submit the bids with the contractor attached, so we needed to select the contractor ASAP.

I’ll note that we had initially met with some general contractors right after making an offer on the building, and had done initial walkthroughs with multiple general contractors to get ballpark estimates (which, in case you were wondering, were not super precise and came with a lot of caveats that the estimate could go up-up-up once real detailed plans were made). So at this stage we were going back and asking for real bids, which took about 3 weeks to get in. We ultimately chose a contractor we had a strong reference for and who we got along with, so we were good-to-go there.

[Kripa: Fun fact, 68% of all general contractors in Chicago are Irish. I am 43% sure of that statistic.]

We kept working with David to refine the decisions, and then we were able to submit for permits in mid-August!

Then the permit process took about 4 months. Yes, that’s a long time, but we went into it thinking 3-4 months was realistic given Chicago’s long permitting process (we heard 3 months as a common estimate from some experienced people), so ultimately not TOO terrible. For those considering a similarly-sized project: there are firms/architects who are part of Chicago’s self-certification permit program which can speed up the process.

The 4-month permit timeline was good in one unexpected way: it gave us time to catch a second wind in terms of having the mental energy to spend on this project after the intense design process. We also had a chance to imagine ourselves in the space, which (we hope) has helped us percolate in preparation for all the sourcing and construction decisions we’ll be making over the next couple of months.

But I want to see the !*$&ing final plans?!?

Gotcha. And good news: we’ll be showing our plans in the next post!!

In our initial first floor walkthrough post, we included a picture of some white tiles peaking out from under the brown laminate flooring that Kripa noticed:

I went over one weekend while we were waiting on permits to dig a little deeper, see if anything was under there. Lo and behold, using a paint scraper to pry up the edges, I found this:

• 

• 

Very exciting!! I went back the next weekend to try and make some more progress so Kripa and I could decide whether it was worth keeping. Ideally it would be like HGTV and we’d reveal an amazing work of art, but we also knew it was as likely that it could reveal incomplete/crappy/broken tile.

I made three miscalculations when I went to go work on the tile:

1. The heat hadn’t kicked on that day during a Chicago winter, and when I got there the inside of the house was 29 degrees.
2. I only had thin gloves – I had forgotten my work gloves.
3. I decided to work on the tile in spite of items #1 and #2.

• 

• 

Three hours later, my legs were stiff and cold from being on the tile floor, my hands were killing me from the cold and holding the pry bar as I hammered it to pry up the tile. On the up side, the pattern had started to reveal itself!

By my calculations, at this rate I’d need another 21 hours of work to finish revealing the tile. As I mentioned my heroic labor of love to friends, the unanimous response was “Get a heat gun.” So I got a heat gun for $19 and went back again.

2.5 hours later, here’s where I was:

Much better progress! My new calculation was only another 4.5 hours of work and I’d be done!

At this point we got our permits and demolition was about to start (more on that in another post), and I didn’t have time to do any more on it. I came back after demo started to take a look, and my first thought was “OMG, they destroyed the tile!!!”

I caught my breath, and after sweeping away the dust I could see the tile was still there. Phew.

Fast forward to present day: last week I went and took a look, and the all the old laminate is removed!

Our contractor, Martin, told Kripa that they started removing the laminate and it was slow, so they grabbed a blow torch and had it done in 5 minutes.

Womp womp.

Our plan is to clean it up once we’re closer to completion. There is a crack in ~10 of the tiles across the top left, so we might need to replace those. I’ll post pictures when that happens (I’d guess that will be in about 3 months).

I love the pattern, especially the border. Part of it might be covered by the new walls, but we’ll keep as much of it exposed as we can. We haven’t been able to keep too much of the original house, so I’m really stoked to be able to keep this original entryway tile!

**This post contains affiliate links

Time to walk through the second floor. When last we left off, from the entry vestibule, door #2 (right door) leads up stairs to the entry of the second floor apartment. This floor is laid out almost identically to the first floor, so we’ll do our best to keep this post interesting…

1. Living Room – When walking into the apartment, the living room sits to your left, and hits you with great light out of those triple windows. It’s bigger than the downstairs version because it also gains the square footage of the foyer. This area (labeled ‘office’ in the floor plan) is probably what sold me on the house. (For Brian, the safe, for me, this “room”). It has the most beautiful original french doors that we are definitely keeping. They open out to a fairly large balcony that looks out onto the street.
2. Bedroom 1 – Same as on the first floor, the front bedroom has two doors (one to the foyer, one to the rear hallway). The original wood flooring exposed on this second floor bedroom, but it’s definitely patchy – different types of woods in different rooms.
3. Dining room – The formal dining has another original built-in cabinet, though it’s been painted white and there is some minor damage. We’ll have to see how much we can keep and/or repair. Perhaps we’ll Frankenstein the two of them together into one piece.
4. Bathroom – There is some cool old hexagonal tile in here which might be original, and a cast iron claw foot tub that I have visions of re-finishing and re-using. It’s in ok shape and I hate the current exterior color. We’ll see how we go!
5. Bedroom 2 – Same as first floor, la dee da!
6. Kitchen – The second floor kitchen had already been ripped out, to which we thought – great! One less thing. Turns out, not so much. As part of the buying process we had to install the bare minimum to qualify as a kitchen: drywall, a working sink and some babinets. We don’t want a second kitchen on the second floor, but the lender required this for closing. C’est la vie; we’ll re-use the cabinets in the garage or something.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

•